rec.autos.simulators

Face it Alan - ALL future sims will be compared to GPL and/or NR2k3.  
That's simply the lay of the land because pay's sims were always better
than everyone elses.  Papy placed the bar, and IMHO, it's the job of
future sims to excel above that bar.  

I happen to agree with Tony - rFactor ain't perfect, but it's highly
modable, and there is already an active mod community supporting the
sim.  

One last point - at least ISI is *trying* to give us what we want, to
the point that they've gone rogue as far as using a "publisher" is
concerned. They've even delivered a product. It's a whole helluva lot
better than EA's continuing effort to deliver a decent nascar sim.

<Snip nice review>

In short my thoughts about rFactor is: Great graphics/sounds/'physics'

Nice cars/tracks, and the possibility of mods is great.

Weak controller support/replay facilities/netcode/

Bad AI

Especially the AI/netcode worries me, since driving on your own gets
boring very fast.  So far the online races I've been in are like 1
hour practice/1 hour qualify/5 laps race....why on Earth do you want
to practice/qualify 2 hours for a 7 minutes race? I'm sure this is
adjustable, but the defaults choosen is weird.

Furthermore I see mostly F1 cars online, with people 'driving' them
like accelarate/corner/crash/etc. So far I haven't seen a single
proper online race. (Alan, close your eyes) Those 'To Curve Grande
Sprints' on GPL Monza were high class races compared to this...

Cheers!

Remco

This has been fixed.

It can be changed.

I raced on-line this morning in the Academy trainer against another 19
drivers drving ATs, and it was fantastic! Really good driving by
everyone, from what I saw. No warp either.

Don't know why people jump straight into the F1s.
Accelerate/corner/crash just about sums them up!

I updated the video, so it's a bit cleaner and faster (sub 1:07.5), link is
still the same:

http://jeffareid.net/cgi-bin/rfrf1tgp.wmv

Maybe the first night, I saw more of a mix on the second night.

How many survived?

I don't think the car matters, my one and only win online was a 20 lap
race at Toban GP with the Howston. At the start, I pulled over and
let all the cars go by, to avoid the early wrecks. My strategy was
to conserve the tires and not pit at all, since pit time is pretty
long. The race started with 15 cars and ended up with just 3.

One cool effect with an online replay is that if you just jump to the
end and back up a lap, you can see all the cars that left as ghost cars
(the surviving cars go right though these cars).

they're compensating.  ;)

cheers

steve

Having played Need For Speed Underground 2, er, uhm, make
that having played F1C99-02, I like the faster pace of the
F1's, and it's a lot easier to race if you let the cars go
by at the start and end up with a clear track after most
of the drivers crash (I can't keep up with the few players
that are actually fast anyway). Also having played GPL
helps quite a bit since most servers turn off all the assists
(except auto-clutch).

But that's the thing I wonder about...as long you're driving on your
own the F1 is nice, but when you're racing others it's not.  The F1 is
difficult enough to keep on the road, let alone when someone is
filling your mirrors.....

Cheers!

Remco

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- This announcement is brought to you by the Shimago-Dominguez
Corporation - helping America into the New World...

Because of the speed, the cars usually spread out pretty quickly, it's
just a matter of surviving the first few turns. Of course starting at
the back, you don't have to worry about someone filling your mirrors.
Anyone you pass will probably stay passed as well. Then again, everyone
can't start at the back of the pack, so the other rule. If another
car is gaining on you, let it by. Eventually you end up in the
right spot in field. Once players acclimate to the F1, the variation
in braking points will diminish, and there should be fewer collisions.

How would others here rank the sedans in terms of lap times?
I assume that the Howstons would be the quickest, based on price.

    Is your only issue with the netcode the prac/qual time? Other than that,
and race reporting atm, it seems every bit as good as papy stuff so far.
Arguably even better since collisions aren't exaggerated.

   This is the first sim to properly challenge Papy sims
since..................well um..................um,
ah.....................well, since forever!

It has potential, that's for sure.

Cheers!

Remco